Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Mr. Sparkle

(3,180 posts)
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 07:24 AM 9 hrs ago

Trump Ally Peter Thiel's Op-Ed Turns Heads for Being 'Beyond Nuts'

Peter Thiel, the billionaire supporter of Donald Trump, had much to say in an op-ed Friday in the Financial Times, resulting in some critical feedback. In “A Time for Truth and Reconciliation”—a reference to post-Apartheid policies in South Africa—Thiel anticipates the Trump administration being fully equipped to, once and for all, expose the “deep state.” He mentions Jeffrey Epstein, the JFK assassination, and COVID-19.

“Trump’s return to the White House augurs the apokálypsis of the ancien regime’s secrets,” Thiel writes. “The new administration’s revelations need not justify vengeance—reconstruction can go hand in hand with reconciliation. But for reconciliation to take place, there must first be truth." Thiel’s column drew a range of criticism, including from a columnist at the Financial Times, Edward Luce.

“Inside the mind of a Silicon Valley fanatic,” Luce reacted on BlueSky. “Peter Thiel makes Orwellian analogy between today’s liberal democracy and South African apartheid—and calls for a truth and reconciliation commission to uncover the crimes of America’s ‘Ancien regime.’ Beyond nuts.” Andy Craig, a scholar at the Cato Institute, had a similar response.

“It reflects very poorly on FT to have published this crazy person rant,” he wrote on the same site. “Obviously he would have got it out there somewhere anyway, but there was no good reason to let it appear under their masthead. If it was by Peter Smith this would have gone straight into their crank submissions file.” And Brookings Institute fellow Quinta Jurecic added that Thiel, “if he ever had it, has certainly lost it now.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ally-peter-thiels-op-ed-turns-heads-for-being-beyond-nuts/

24 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Trump Ally Peter Thiel's Op-Ed Turns Heads for Being 'Beyond Nuts' (Original Post) Mr. Sparkle 9 hrs ago OP
He's Afrikaner. They are evil AND nuts. ratchiweenie 9 hrs ago #1
Afrikaaners reversed Apartheid. Throwing blanket prejudicial condemnations over ethnic groups is Bernardo de La Paz 8 hrs ago #6
Sorry but while they changed their laws it would not appear ratchiweenie 8 hrs ago #7
You seem to miss that it is the prejudice expressed by your automatic condemnation of people Bernardo de La Paz 8 hrs ago #9
But it was the Afrikaaner-based National Party that won power in 1948 that introduced apartheid muriel_volestrangler 8 hrs ago #10
Yes. We both object strenuously to Apartheid. But positing "if A then automatically B" is pre-judging Bernardo de La Paz 8 hrs ago #11
They seem to have more than their share of nuts. So do we. paleotn 6 hrs ago #23
Our rich white male overloads are batshit crazy. Irish_Dem 9 hrs ago #2
Steve Bannon: "Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans." sop 9 hrs ago #3
Steve Bannon as anti racist? Who knew? wnylib 8 hrs ago #12
Bannon will argue he's not a racist, he's just virulently anti-H-1B. sop 7 hrs ago #14
He insists that's an econimic issue having to do with employing Americans over H1B visa holders. I think there may be ratchiweenie 7 hrs ago #16
He may actually be telling the truth regarding whathehell 6 hrs ago #24
Yet another example of why we must stop valuing money over decency. Think. Again. 9 hrs ago #4
Reconciliation is not congruent to capitulation. . . . . nt Bernardo de La Paz 9 hrs ago #5
will you believe any "truth" that comes out of a trump commission? rampartd 8 hrs ago #8
Thiel is the leading edge of libertarian tech bro culture Renew Deal 7 hrs ago #13
Thiel is "likely more sophisticated in his thought process." dchill 6 hrs ago #22
Thread about this two days ago: highplainsdem 7 hrs ago #15
Thiel and his royalists Beck23 7 hrs ago #17
And lest we forget, Theil is JD Vance's sugardaddy. bluesbassman 7 hrs ago #18
Yes. Thiel and his cronies bought this presidency. yardwork 6 hrs ago #20
What they hell is wrong with Afrikaners? paleotn 7 hrs ago #19
Peter Thiel, the master of ponderous pretentiousness. Borogove 6 hrs ago #21

Bernardo de La Paz

(51,706 posts)
6. Afrikaaners reversed Apartheid. Throwing blanket prejudicial condemnations over ethnic groups is
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 08:13 AM
8 hrs ago

Progressives and liberals and Democrats and lefties are against blanket prejudicial condemnations of ethnic groups, are we not?

Yes, some of the Afrikaaners (note spelling) and some of the English South Africans brought in Apartheid.

It is also true that some of the Afrikaaners and some of the English South Africans reversed Apartheid. In fact they went better than the pre 1948 South Africa and the result is a new Constitution (strongly influenced by the Canadian one from the 1980s) and universal suffrage.

Automatic condemnation of a person for belonging in an ethnic or distinguishable group is not my way.

ratchiweenie

(7,962 posts)
7. Sorry but while they changed their laws it would not appear
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 08:22 AM
8 hrs ago

they changed their thinking. These are evil men. Can you really say the basic Africaaner thinking has changed? Not from what I read. They are just South African MAGA.

Bernardo de La Paz

(51,706 posts)
9. You seem to miss that it is the prejudice expressed by your automatic condemnation of people
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 08:38 AM
8 hrs ago
He's Afrikaner. They are evil AND nuts.

The entirety of your post.

How is that different from the kind of posts most DUers dislike, the posts that assume Southeners are all hicks and uneducated because they are Southeners?

muriel_volestrangler

(102,740 posts)
10. But it was the Afrikaaner-based National Party that won power in 1948 that introduced apartheid
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 08:52 AM
8 hrs ago
J.B.M. Hertzog founded the National Party in 1914 in order to rally Afrikaners against what he considered the Anglicizing policies of the government of Louis Botha and Jan Christian Smuts. In 1924, after mild attempts to relax the colour bar, the Smuts government was defeated by a Nationalist-Labour coalition led by Hertzog, who in two terms sought to further emancipate South Africa from British imperial control and to provide greater “protection” for the whites from the Black Africans and for the Afrikaners from the British. From 1933 to 1939 Hertzog and Smuts joined a coalition government and fused their respective followings into the United Party. Some Nationalists, led by Daniel F. Malan, however, held out and kept the National Party alive and, in 1939, reaccepted Hertzog as their leader in a reorganized opposition party known as the Re-united National Party, or People’s Party (Herenigde Nasionale Party, or Volksparty). The new party was weakened by wartime factionalism; and Hertzog and others with Nazi sympathies eventually walked out and formed the Afrikaner Party (1941).

The Re-united National Party returned victoriously in the 1948 elections and subsequently enacted a mass of racial legislation that was designed to preserve white supremacy in South Africa; the National Party named its policy “apartheid.” The party went on to consolidate its power, absorbing the Afrikaner Party in 1951. It renamed itself the National Party of South Africa (1951) and gradually augmented its control of the House of Assembly—from 73 seats in 1948 to 134 seats (81 percent) in 1977. The party was led successively by Daniel F. Malan (1948–54), Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom (1954–58), Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (1958–66), John Vorster (1966–78), P.W. Botha (1978–89), F.W. de Klerk (1989–97), and Marthinus van Schalkwyk (1997–2005). The National Party also broke South Africa away from the Commonwealth, making it a republic in 1961. From the premiership of Vorster on, the National Party attempted what it termed an “enlightened” (verligte) policy on the race question; but this meant hardly more than speeding up the formation of Black “homelands” and alleviating—selectively—some of the apartheid policies found inconvenient to general economic and cultural development.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa

The formal racism was very much based in the Afrikaaner community, while the English community was more liberal.

Bernardo de La Paz

(51,706 posts)
11. Yes. We both object strenuously to Apartheid. But positing "if A then automatically B" is pre-judging
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 08:59 AM
8 hrs ago

Pre-judging is prejudice.

We should hold ourselves up to the same standard we ask of others when we condemn their prejudice expressed as automatic condemnation simply by having an ethnic or sexual identity?

I was the first to mention 1948.

paleotn

(19,693 posts)
23. They seem to have more than their share of nuts. So do we.
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 10:29 AM
6 hrs ago

Particularly southern white Americans. I fit that demo perfectly. A white American, or a certain age, born and raised in the south, with a religious upbringing. But I look at my demo and wonder...what the fuck is wrong with you people?! A blanket statement that never bothered me because I know those people well. Sure, there are exceptions. Plenty of them, but the majority are not always pleasant by modern standards. The southern strategy worked. Need I say more? It seems Afrikaners fall into that same category. Exceptions, certainly, but enough nutters to make you wonder...is there something in the damn water down there?

sop

(11,862 posts)
3. Steve Bannon: "Peter Thiel, David Sacks, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans."
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 07:58 AM
9 hrs ago

“Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

Nazis moved to Argentina after the fall of the Third Reich, post-apartheid Afrikaners are moving to the United States.

sop

(11,862 posts)
14. Bannon will argue he's not a racist, he's just virulently anti-H-1B.
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 09:20 AM
7 hrs ago

Particularly when H-1B visa holders are dark-skinned foreigners from South Asian countries.

ratchiweenie

(7,962 posts)
16. He insists that's an econimic issue having to do with employing Americans over H1B visa holders. I think there may be
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 09:40 AM
7 hrs ago

enough qualified Americans to take those jobs but also don't want to discourage the best and brightest around the world from coming here. It's not a black and white issue for me and not for many Americans.

whathehell

(29,911 posts)
24. He may actually be telling the truth regarding
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 10:42 AM
6 hrs ago

his positon on H-1B Visas. I am also against them for reasons having zero to do with color or race.

rampartd

(1,119 posts)
8. will you believe any "truth" that comes out of a trump commission?
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 08:24 AM
8 hrs ago

will he put q anon as chair of "truth and reconciliation?"

jeezus these people are stupid.

Renew Deal

(83,238 posts)
13. Thiel is the leading edge of libertarian tech bro culture
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 09:16 AM
7 hrs ago

And he wants to change all parts of society, not just tech policy. He was and probably still is close with Musk. Thiel was political before Musk was and is likely more sophisticated in his thought process.

dchill

(40,888 posts)
22. Thiel is "likely more sophisticated in his thought process."
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 10:26 AM
6 hrs ago

How hard could that be, really?

Beck23

(284 posts)
17. Thiel and his royalists
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 10:03 AM
7 hrs ago

Like Curtis Yarvin live in a fantasy world, and don't seem to understand that class warfare is not always based on race alone. There are millions more poor white people than poor black people in the US.

bluesbassman

(19,952 posts)
18. And lest we forget, Theil is JD Vance's sugardaddy.
Sun Jan 12, 2025, 10:06 AM
7 hrs ago

His influence may not be as flashy as Musk’s, but it’s certainly at a disturbingly high level in the incoming administration.

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Trump Ally Peter Thiel's ...